Labour’s £4.5 billion school reforms are failing to improve standards in the
three-Rs because teachers have been “overwhelmed” by red tape, according to
Ofsted.

Progress in English and maths has been “too slow” over the last four years as state schools have struggled under the weight of new initiatives and teaching materials, said the watchdog.

In a damning report, inspectors also said that the Government’s National Strategies had led to a dramatic rise in the number of consultants hired to monitor schools.

One school was visited by officials 55 times in less than two years, even though results actually got worse.

Overall, Ofsted found “weaknesses” in basic teaching standards at half of secondary schools and a third of primaries, despite repeated exposure to the programme.

The National Strategies – one of Tony Blair’s most radical education reforms – heralded the introduction of centralised teaching methods and famously led to the launch of daily literacy and numeracy hours in English primary schools.

“What we need is radical reform to give teachers more power to keep discipline, heads more power to reward good teaching and parents more freedom to get the education they want with smaller class sizes.”

Christine Gilbert, the Ofsted chief inspector, said: “The National Strategies have been at the forefront of improving teaching in the core subjects.

“However, improvement has been too slow over the last four years and this report finds the potential effectiveness of the strategies is much diminished.”

The National Strategies were introduced more than a decade ago to provide training and resources for primary school teachers to improve core subjects.

The programme is best known for the literacy hour – teaching infants how to read and write in a highly-structured way.

Since then, it has been expanded to nurseries and secondary schools, covering areas such as managing behaviour, cutting truancy, targeting gifted pupils, helping children with special needs and teacher training.

Capita currently runs the National Strategies under a £240m deal which runs until next year – when the policy is scrapped.

The Government said the total cost of the programme over the last 13 years was around £2.5bn for primary schools and £2bn for secondaries.

In the latest report, Ofsted said policies had led to improvements in some areas, including better training and support for teachers.

But overall progress had stalled in recent years as the number of initiatives has grown, said Ofsted.

The report – “The National Strategies: a review of impact” – was based on inspections of regional directors running the programme, along with 12 local councils, 33 primary schools and 21 secondaries.

Ofsted found consultants hired nationally to drive the policy – as well as those in local authorities – had increased significantly in recent years.

“Too much monitoring by too many people did not always tackle weaknesses but simply continued to identify them,” said the report. “The schools and local authorities visited were often overwhelmed by the volume of centrally driven initiatives, materials and communications. They often received multiple requests for the same information from external agencies.”

The report said the impact of consultants’ work was often limited by the “rushed or late distribution of training materials”. Other initiatives were introduced mid-year – with little advanced notice – making it difficult for schools to plan ahead.

Many local authorities were inundated with reports on schools that offered “no useful new information”, as well as being expected to attend multiple meeting and training events. One council official had 26 meetings with National Strategies staff in her diary in just 12 months.

Ofsted recommended that ministers should commission a “systematic and independent” evaluation of the programme and ensure only the most effective initiatives are continued beyond 2011.

Vernon Coaker, the Schools Minister, said: “We make no apologies for taking a robust approach to raising performance in schools in the late 90s.

“A relentless focus on the three-Rs, coupled with record investment and rapid intervention has led to the highest ever school standards – and Ofsted’s report is clear that the National Strategies have made a real impact on teaching and learning.

“It’s true that, while secondary results continue to improve, primary results have stabilised – and we’re determined to get them rising again.

“We’ve laid strong foundations but it is now right to phase out the centralised National Strategies programme and give individual heads sole responsibility for driving progress.”